


Chain

by Senket



Series: Matrimonial Complexity [1]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Implied Torture, M/M, Psychological Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-04
Updated: 2010-12-04
Packaged: 2017-11-15 13:55:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/528027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Senket/pseuds/Senket
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rodney McKay is taken away to be tortured- but the rest of SGA-1 can still hear everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chain

**Author's Note:**

> Season 2, Dex is a recent addition

Five minutes ago, Ronon started screaming obscene threats at their impassive guards, throwing his bulk against the bars that encaged them. The men watched him passively, weapons at the ready yet uninterested, and said nothing as they watched rusted bars bruise lines across tanned skin.

Five minutes ago, Teyla crouched in a corner and watched the men as they watched Ronon, her eyes betraying nothing but a deep stillness. She was a tigress, waiting for the opportunity to strike, feral and focused.

Five minutes ago John pressed himself against the bars that separated them from the empty cell beside theirs, wild eyes fixed on the corridor that led deeper into the complex.

Five minutes ago, Rodney McKay stopped screaming.

* * *

John knew instinctively that Ronon was yelling savagely, renewing his efforts to get out and destroy their captors. He knew instinctively that, though she was silent as the grave, Teyla was tense and ready to explode. He knew instinctively Atlantis was doing their best to find them.

He couldn't hear a thing, white noise buzzing in his ears, and watching without feeling as two men dragged a limp, bloody mess into the adjoining cell and left it on the floor before straightening their uniforms and marching out again.

He knew instinctively that Rodney McKay could not take much more.

Consciously, his head was empty except for the sound of screaming, and the sight of blood oozing out of a torn ear.

* * *

They knew Rodney was conscious first because of the soft sound of breathless and painful coughing, because of the tired moan. Teyla spoke nonsense through the bars, moving closer, and they could tell Rodney was trying to lift his head to look at them, but it was so hard, muscles stiff with pooled blood that shone purple and blue all over his body through the streaks where sweat had melted away grime. When his face finally turned, John felt something tear into him. Though only one of his eyes opened enough to even see them, Rodney regarded each for a long moment, studying their forms. The look of pronounced relief in the scientist's features, to see his teammates were all there, to see they were all unharmed and tense and watching him and _all right_ , make John sick with tension and something he couldn't name. Then slowly, oh so slowly, Rodney started to move towards them.

Sheppard watched, feeling dangerously helpless, fear cold and acidic in him, fingers white with the strength of his grip on the rusting bars. McKay dragged himself closer, inch by inch. His face was twisted with strain, dark under a layer of grime and blood. His breath hitched with ever move. He would stop for long stretches at a time, panting. The scientist cried softly, muffled sobs and whining whimpers as he moved, leaving a dark streak against the flecked floor. He would occasionally cry out, the sounds torn from his dry throat and followed with ragged sobs, or try to spit the blood out of his mouth and be only able to make an odd hacking sound as fluids dribbled down his chin.

Sheppard never looked away, trying his best to categorize McKay's injuries. He was going to get him back, he was going to get a list of every single cut and bruise and burn and break, and he was going to replicate every one on each of those captors. He had been thinking about how nice it would be to get them kneeling at his feet, make them beg for their lives like they'd made Rodney _scream_ , and shoot them in the head, quick and done, but no. They didn't deserve that. No one was getting to be so damn _lucky_

Clammy, trembling fingers brushed against his and he gripped Rodney's hand without a thought, wincing when the man flinched but never letting go. Teyla hurried over, now that the man was in range, slipping her slender hand through the bars to brush her fingers against his temples tenderly. Ronon sat beside her, strong back pressed against the bars, his fingers conveniently placed through the gaps. Rodney shifted closer, pressing his shoulder against the large fingers, curling towards them, pressing tightly against the bars. Teyla sang softly but none of them relaxed in the slightest, whipcords of tension thrumming down their spines.

"Rodney, you couldn't talk if you wanted to," John told him quietly, squeezing the man's fingers. "Do you want us to stop it?" Rodney didn't so much respond as make a long, winded sound, edging into a scraggly whimper. "I'll take that as a no," he responded, pressing his forehead against the bars, "but just say the word anytime." Rodney didn't respond, and they lapsed back into a heavy silence.

* * *

"You think McKay can bear it?" Teyla and Sheppard glanced at the tall man. After a long pause, the CO shrugged, returning to his silent vigil, eyes fixed on the door of the cell beside them.

"It does not matter," Teyla told him softly, her head rolling to the side. "McKay has not… been able to deal very well with pain or torture historically." Sheppard sneered at that, sinking against the wall. "Keeping himself silent under this abuse must be very trying for him." She paused, glancing over at their team leader, taking in his stilted fury, before straightening her back and turning again to Ronon, brows rising. "To break for him when he is trying so hard to keep himself in check- we cannot take the worth of his effort away from him. As long as Rodney tries to bear it, we will bear it with him."

"No matter how difficult it may be," she added quietly, gaze dropping to the ground between her feet.

* * *

He didn't really remember the rescue clearly. He remembered the cell door opening, someone handing him a gun, and going white with rage. He remembered screaming and trying to beat him own men out of the way when Rodney was strapped up in something, only stopped when Ronon wrapped his tree-limb arms around him and lifted him off the ground. He remembered sitting, staring at the wall, as Elizabeth tried to get _anything_ out of him, and sneering when she ordered him to go see Heightmeyer. He remembered wondering when he had torn his knuckles, and hoping it was bashing in someone's head, and not feeling at all sorry for the thought. He remembered Heightmeyer asking him how he felt about Rodney's condition and saying that 'the asshole better be having a nice dream' and really, really hoping that Rodney was because, god, he deserved it. He- He. He just. Everything.

Two weeks later and there had been no change. Sheppard's eyes were blood-shot, his hair flat and listless, a smear of dirt beneath his left eye. Twelve hours ago he was called out of the infirmary to run a rescue mission. He'd been at first terrified that Rodney would awake before he could return, and then hoped that the strange rules of the universe would ensure that the man wake up while he was away- because Rodney waking while he was gone was infinitely better than Rodney never waking at all.

But he hadn't woken, and now John Sheppard was feeling less at ease than ever. The majority of Doctor McKay's injuries had healed, at least the external. His left leg had fractured in two places, his right broken outright; he had a crushed left hand, cracked ribs- all still healing. But the cuts had healed, the bruises had cleared, the lash-marks had scarred, the burns had scarred or vanished, the respirator had been removed, and still Rodney would not wake. He sank into his chair, pressing his fingers against his eyes, against his temples, and sighed heavily. War and Peace was sitting on top of the heart monitor, but he didn't want to read it, hadn't read it, so he huddled down for another long period of silence.

A change in the rhythm of beeping jarred the lanky man awake, and he shot forward to grab twitching fingers, holding his breath. "Rodney?"

Hazy blue eyes moved sluggishly, the scientist looking around the room in confusion. McKay relaxed with a soft huff when he saw the troubled man beside him, squeezing the hand back. Sheppard all but collapsed, his forehead pressed against the bed-pan.

"You scared the shit out of me."

Rodney tried to smile- a weird look, lopsided more than usual, his head lolling to the side. "I never told them a thing, Colonel."

The man swore under his breath, squeezing his eyes closed. "I know, buddy. I know."

* * *

Sheppard edged through the halls like a shadow, aware of every creak of his leather jacket and every scuff of his boots against the floor. It was far too late at night to be worrying about such things, but Atlantis had the strangest ability to echo your thoughts when all was dark and empty, and it was hard to sleep with the image of black-brown blood and Rodney's puffy, bruised, half-opened eye staring listlessly at the ceiling as his own men dragged him away. He sighed heavily and slid into the mess, pausing when he noted the lone figure at the last table in the corner, staring down into a cup, fingers laced together and shaking. "Couldn't sleep?" He asked casually, tight and uncomfortable. What the hell else could he say?

Rodney didn't move for a second before looking up. His eyes were bright and bare, and John swallowed. "Couldn't bear to be alone, I guess. It's just- I don't know. I guess I think if I fall asleep on my own I'll wake up back there- or not at all." He tried to laugh, but it was short and awkward and the cavernous, empty room only magnified it and threw it back at them in a twisted tone. Rodney shivered and shrank a little more. "It's fine, whatever, I mean I've been sleeping for, what, two weeks? I should really just work. I've gotta catch mistakes before something one of the other idiots did kill all of us. You know. I'd rather nip it in the-"

He faltered when John put a hand on his shoulder, his mouth snapping shut as he looked up at his friend.

"Come on," John told him, hoisting him up as he inclined his head towards the exit. "Let's get you _properly_ rested."

Rodney sighed but didn't struggle, following the man silently back to his own quarters.

* * *

When John woke he discovered that he had not only gotten up late, but missed a good chunk of that section of the day he liked to call 'morning.' Rodney was still asleep; he'd shifted out of John's arms and onto his stomach at some point, face pushed into the pillow, mouth half-open as he snored softly, but his side still pressed against John shoulder to foot. One arm dangled over the edge and John, as he sat up, was quite surprised to find that Teyla had appeared some time during the day and was sitting with her back against the bed, her arm touching lengthwise along Rodney's, patiently carving something out of a small piece of reddish wood they had found a few missions ago. Ronon, who had no doubt gone looking for Sheppard when he hadn't shown up for their morning run, was sitting with his back against the door and his arms crossed, legs stretched out in front of him.

"Uh. Good morning?" He asked, dazed. Since when did he sleep through people walking into the room? For that matter, since when did his internal clock abandon him like that?

Teyla was the first to respond, glancing over her shoulder to smile at him lightly. "Good morning to you, Colonel Sheppard. I am glad to see you well rested. Perhaps at this time it would be best if you were to nourish yourself as well?"

He shrugged, running his fingers through messy hair. "I don't know. I think maybe we should wait for Rodney to-"

"Taken care of." He glanced up to see Elizabeth edging around Ronon with a full platter, Carson behind her with a second. "Good morning, John. Brought you breakfast." She smiled, handing the platter over and taking a seat at the edge of the bed.

Rodney groaned and pulled a pillow over his head, woken quickly by the flurry of activity. Carson pulled it away and coaxed him up, holding out some coffee just closely enough for the man to get a sniff before pulling it away and trying to convince him to down something that looked suspiciously like a pear but tasted an awful lot closer to coconut- though not really that, either.

Sheppard edged a little out of the way, far enough for Carson to mother his best friend and still close enough that their legs touched under the covers. Nobody complained when he refused to move any farther, though they would've had trouble doing it over the sound of Rodney arguing with Carson about what he called 'rabbit food.'

John settled against the headboard, staring at everyone as he ate, and marveled at the workings of this strange family of his.


End file.
